Tag Archives: giving

Happy Holidays, everybody! Haven Writing Retreats in Montana is a powerful, often life-changing experience that we want to share with the people who want it most. Thanks to Go Fund Me, and Fortua.com, you can help send writers to Haven in 2016!

The first scholarship is inspired by Haven Writing Retreat alum Kathryn Stockett, writer of the best-selling novel and Oscar nominated movie,”The Help.” Kathryn has set up a Gofundme account where you can offer a donation to help a writer come to Haven! To donate, click here.

Here’s what Kathryn has to say:

The Dream: There is a person out there with the dream to write- they’re burning up with words to write – but they can’t afford the advice, time, and encouragement every one of us needs to write our story. I think it would be so cool to send one writer with The Dream to a Haven Writing Retreat.

The idea sprung from hearing about an airline clerk in 1956 who knew she had a story inside her but she couldn’t afford to take time off work to write it. So her friends gave her the money to go write for one year. Oh what friends. She wrote To Kill A Mockingbird.

In 2002, somebody did it for me- just for a month- but I got the advice and the encouragement I needed and it changed everything. I am ever thankful for that gift.

This isn’t a year, or even a month we’re giving, it’s just one weekend, but I think it could truly change someone’s life. What’s even more magical is it would come from writers and readers like you. What friends.

If we make the goal, Laura Munson will take submissions for the scholarship. The money will cover the workshop, food and lodging. This is just a one-time thing, one scholarship, one person. I hope you’ll help me help someone reach their dream.

Blessings,Kathryn Stockett, author of The Help

The second scholarship is for two writers in need, through a wonderful adventure travel website called Fortua.com: Molly Carpenter and Terri Mellott-Gross both dearly want to attend my Haven Writing Retreat from February 24-28, 2016.

In exchange for making a contribution you can receive some great perks and you’ll also have a huge impact on the lives of two wonderful women and aspiring writers!

Without your financial backing Molly and Terri will not be able to attend the retreat.

Meet Molly Renee Carpenter:

I am a Portland State student living in an eensy treehouse above the city. It’s just me, my cat, and my words. In 2011, I started a Word document for daily musings. It has gone through active spurts, dry seasons, entries with excessive cursing, and entries that led to a lot of tears being smeared on my keyboard (they have since dried but I remember they were there). It has never been printed. It has only been seen with someone else’s eyes once, by accident. This summer, it reached 100 pages. Its name has never changed, but the girl writing it sure has.

When I was in fourth grade I read “Little House on the Prairie” and my teacher made all us kids write a synopsis of each chapter. The paper we were given to use had outlines of covered carriages printed on them, the inside of the carriages were lined and we were meant to fill each carriage with each chapter’s synopsis. I remember being sent to the library multiple times throughout the class because I kept running out of paper. I was the only one who ran out of paper. I never could understand how those other kids could fit their words in such a small space. This is the first time I thought I might be different – with words, I might be different.

Sometimes it takes me thirty minutes to write an Instagram post. But between the chaos that is 18 class credits and a full-time job, that thirty minutes spent crafting two sentences will make my heart flutter with purpose. I want to thank each and every backer for this opportunity and believing in me. I know this will be a life changing experience. #ThankYou #SoGrateful

You can find me on Instagram @mollyrcarpenter
Meet Terri Mellott-Gross:

I am a Certified Intuitive Life Coach. I have lived through challenges I candidly wasn’t sure I’d get through and yet, with inspiration from others and finding meaning and purpose in the challenges themselves, I rose above these events to become a much stronger and happier person. Challenges included a difficult childhood, a 25-year marriage that ended in divorce, a diagnosis of aggressive breast cancer, and the death of my mother when I was a girl.

These experiences inspired many questions in me: Why are we here? Is life supposed to be such a struggle? What is the meaning of life?

For more than 20 years I searched for answers and learned we live in a loving universe. We are connected to this source of love and abundance at all times. We are being divinely guided at all times if only we would pay attention. I now know that life is magical, it is a gift and there is nothing that we can’t accomplish.

My goal in attending the Haven Writing Retreat is to further explore my voice and how to share my life journey in writing. To each and every backer, I thank you. Your support is a gift and I will make the most of every moment of this gift. Thank You. #VeryGrateful

During this season of giving, please rally to support writers, forward this blog post to your friends, and share the spirit of the season. Your support will have a significant and positive impact on these people’s lives.

As you may know, I am spending the month of January in the dormancy of winter, working on a book. And, like last year at this time, I am offering my blog to you. Last year we looked into our Breaking Points and found community and grace in grief and vulnerability. This year we are looking into our past, and finding the weaving of community that stitches us to our present. I will be posting these pieces at These Here Hills. Their authors will be happy to receive and respond to your comments.

The “Long Ago: Community” series is also a contest. The winner will receive a scholarship to one of my upcoming Haven writing retreats in Montana. So breathe deeply into a cherished memory of yesterday and today and share with us here. We all seek community somehow. Let us know how community finds its way back to you. Here is the blog post I wrote about this subject. Please enjoy this lovely piece by Jody Casella who blogs here. yrs. Laura

When I was seven years old my mother dragged me along on an errand to the bank downtown. In the lobby there was a display of what seemed like hundreds of dolls, each dressed in a different, lovely (to my seven-year-old eyes) outfit. A lacy ball gown. A hula skirt. Flowery nightshirt and bathrobe. It took a long inspection for me to realize it was the same doll wearing different clothes. I stared at the display longingly while my mother went about her banking business and when we left I pestered her for one of the dolls.

“Sorry,” she told me. “Those are for needy kids.”

I’m not sure I understood what that meant except that I couldn’t have a doll. And I didn’t understand it later when that Christmas, I DID get one of the dolls, the one dressed like Little Red Riding Hood. That was the year my father died and my mother was instantly a young single mother with three kids under the age of seven.

I really liked my Red Riding Hood doll. It was clear to me when I opened it that Christmas that it was the best doll from the bank lobby display. I don’t know who donated it, who sewed the darling jumper and cape and hood. It was a small thing but it meant something to me, a needy kid who didn’t know she was needy.

I’ve been thinking about that anonymous sewer lately, now that I am a million miles away from the little girl I was. Today I’m not wealthy, but certainly comfortable, living a privileged and blessed life by most people’s standards, in a small, privileged, blessed community in Ohio. I’ve got a wonderful husband and two beautiful and brilliant children. I take this life for granted, going about my day to day activities, rarely coming into contact with “needy” people and, truthfully, rarely thinking about them, unless you count writing a few donation checks to worthy charities and my yearly volunteer gig at a Christmas party for under-privileged children.

Last spring my husband and I drove our son up to the college of his dreams for a pre-orientation. We attended a few of the parent activities, mentally patted ourselves on the back for our son’s accomplishments, then left him to do his thing and took a train into New York City for a couple of days to do OUR thing. We had a blast, walking around, seeing the sites, and reconnecting with each other–parents of a soon-to-be-off-to-college boy.

One of the sites on our list was the new Ground Zero Memorial. We walked there on the last day of our trip, taking our time, hitting the neighborhoods along the way, eating a nice lunch, stopping at Starbucks, and finally arriving at the church at the edge of the site, the church that somehow was left standing after the towers fell. My husband went off to find tickets, but I lingered around the church. There was a person on the curb, leaned up against the iron gate, obviously a vagrant. He held a sign and something made me step closer.

“Please help me get home to Ohio,” said the sign.

The person holding it was a teenaged boy. He was half-asleep. Or maybe he was on drugs or drunk. That was what the cynical part of me was thinking. The mother part of me, who had just dropped off a Golden Boy son at college, teared up. Oh my God. What had happened to this boy? How had he come to be on a street corner in New York City with swarms of tourists literally stepping over him? Who was waiting for him back in Ohio? Could I help him? Should I?

Here’s the thing about my husband and me. We NEVER have any cash on us. It’s almost a joke. We are the people who have to write a check at a toll booth. That moment in front of the clearly in need boy, I had eleven dollars in my pocket. My husband had nothing. We knew we needed ten dollars for the train ride back. I looked over my shoulder at the Starbucks. Could I buy the kid a cup of coffee and a Cranberry Bliss Bar? But it was hot outside and we had just walked like, fifty blocks to get there. We were tired. We had our tickets to go into the memorial site. We needed to move on. No one else was even paying attention to this kid, this vagrant.

I am ashamed to say that I bent down and put one crumpled dollar bill in the boy’s hand. We looked at each other, and I said, “I’m sorry I can’t give you more.”

On the long drive home to Ohio my son chattered about all the cool things going on at the college, the awesome people he met, the interesting classes he would take. My husband and I were thrilled for him. Our son’s dreams were coming true! But I couldn’t stop thinking about somebody else’s son back at the church. I should’ve given him the eleven dollars at least. My husband and I could’ve hit an ATM on the way to the train station. I should’ve gone over to Starbucks. The Cranberry Bliss Bar would’ve been better than nothing. Forget that. I should’ve gone to an ATM and taken out enough money to buy him a plane ticket back to Ohio. We could’ve freaking DRIVEN him back to Ohio.

Why didn’t we help him when we had the chance? What was wrong with us?

I asked my husband this question. We lamented our actions but then started to rationalize. Maybe the boy wasn’t a needy Ohio kid. He was probably a scammer, a thief, plunked out on the sidewalk purposely manipulating out-of-town tourists.

But we can’t know that. And does it even matter?

I know we live in a country that likes to divide people into groups, label others as takers. It’s true there are takers. But I think that labeling helps us, the blessed ones, the lucky ones, feel better about ignoring those who are genuinely in need. Not only that, we mock them, show disdain for them, assume the worst. Or maybe it’s just that there is so much need that we don’t even know where to start, whom to help. We’re paralyzed. Easier to look away, to step over the kid on the street corner. There are so many of those needy people, and he’s not even the worst off.

A few hours from Ohio, some guy stopped us at a rest area and said he needed just a few dollars for gas to make it to his destination. Obvious scam, my husband and I thought, but we dug around for change and gave it to him. A few weeks later we found out that someone we went to school with died, leaving a daughter in college and in need of money for books. We wrote a check immediately and sent it to her. This Christmas we spent more time buying presents for kids we picked for our volunteer gig than we did buying for our own kids. When I heard that an acquaintance’s home was damaged by the recent hurricane, I mailed her a Home Depot gift card.

It’s not enough. It will never be enough. But once upon a time I was a needy girl who received a donated doll for Christmas, a little thing that meant a lot, and I will never step over someone else’s Golden Boy again.

I’ve been asked to answer countless questions in the last year from radio, newspaper, and magazine interviewers– mostly about how to take care of yourself during a hard time. Sometimes the interviewer is trying to turn my story into one of “Holding onto your man” which irks me because that’s not what my book is about. It’s about letting go. It’s about empowerment. It’s about not letting things outside your control define your personal happiness. But when this writer approached me for her article, I was intrigued. Her question was unique: what kinds of gifts can we give our partners that do not have a dollar value on them? I liked being asked this question because I love my husband, and it got me thinking. How do we gift our loved ones? Especially in this season of giving. Here’s what EXPERIENCE LIFE magazine has to say about it.

Excerpt:Gift 3: Allow Space for Solitude
When author Laura Munson and her husband got married, their ceremony included a quote from the poet Rainier Maria Rilke, which read, in part: “A good marriage is one in which each partner appoints the other to be the guardian of his solitude, and thus they show each other the greatest possible trust.” Almost two decades of marriage and two children later, Munson’s husband began to have doubts about the marriage. But instead of begging him to stay, Munson took Rilke’s quote to heart and gave her husband the emotional space she felt he needed to reflect and reconnect with himself.